


The Doctor Discovers Emojis

by ModernWizard



Series: Alison Wonderland [4]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who: Scream of the Shalka
Genre: Ace Master, Asexual Character, Asexual Doctor, Asexual Master, Asexual Relationship, Caregiver Burnout, Caregiver Problems, Cats, Disabled Character of Color, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Female Character of Color, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Imp the TARDIS cat, LGBTQ Female Character of Color, Magical smart phones, Master POV, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Doctor, Punk Rock, TARDIS cats - Freeform, The Doctor sings the Master, The Doctor's magical voice, The Master and his Doctor, The Master and his Domina, The Master is very proprietary about everyone on the ship, The Master's POV, The power of the Doctor's song, Traumatic Brain Injury, Velvet Underground - Freeform, Venus in Furs - Freeform, ace doctor, emojis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-07 21:41:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11067690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ModernWizard/pseuds/ModernWizard
Summary: The Master invents super-advanced smart phones for himself, the Doctor, and Alison so they can communicate with each other anywhere in the universe. Alison's thrilled to communicate with the Master and the Doctor just as immediately as the two of them can through their psychic connection. The Doctor, meanwhile, discovers the joy of emojis. Unfortunately, they go overboard, and there's a whole big dramatic thing in which they're sure that they've damaged their robot and possibly Alison's brain, and the Master has to try to calm everyone down. Featuring an appearance by Imp, a flying cat constructed by the Master, who calls him "Useless Cat."





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alison, the Master, and the Doctor share their excitement about their new TARDIS Talk phones, invented by the Master.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor, ecstatic over the communications possibilities of emojis, starts singing and messing with the Master's phone, as well as the Master's perceptions.

Usually, when the Master retreats into the privacy of his own TARDIS, he enjoys inviolable solitude. The silence around him complements the silence in his own mind, and he can work undisturbed in perfect concentration. For example, tonight he went into his studio, where he had hoped tonight to finish painting a likeness doll of his Doctor, thus allowing himself to move onto the greater challenge of creating one of his dearest Domina. However, the actual Doctor refuses to shut up, sending periodic texts of such enthusiasm that he thoroughly regrets giving them new toys a few hours before bedtime.

 

The Master has just spent twenty blissfully silent minutes mixing the right colors of the darkened, creased skin under the Doctor’s eyes when the hiatus ends at approximately sunrise. Several incoming text sounds trip over themselves, cutting each other off. The Master glances at his phone.

 

The Master’s phone bursts into sound again, but not electronic cues and signals. It’s a wordless caroling that moves upward in exultant bounds -- his Doctor’s voice, overflowing with the lyricless emanations that they bring forth when most overcome. He checks the settings, but he hasn’t left the speaker phone feature on accidentally. Nor has the Doctor initiated a voice call with him.

 

And yet still the Master hears the Doctor, singing for joy over emojis. Just as the Doctor’s voice alters him, a piece of technology, so it alters his phone to become a magnification of their wonder. Yet again, they are changing the universe purely through the power of their song.

 

 

Now, thanks to the Doctor’s song, the Master’s phone transmits not only emojis, but a burst of multisensory synaesthetic experience that the Doctor associates with each. The piano plays molten gold notes that taste of barley, and the violin sends out a flurry of March wind gusts. The daisy’s petals stroke the Master’s tongue like confectioner’s sugar; the evergreen smells like cool rods of stainless steel. The wilted tulip has the deep old sweetness of a grave. The phone’s screen flickers and dims as colors, tastes, and tactile sensations stream from it.

 

The Master knows exactly where this is going. The Doctor, wishing to account for every single thing in the universe that they hold dear, will employ every emoji available to them -- assuming that their phone doesn’t give out first. The Master designed these devices for video, voice, and data, not whole phenomenological states, especially not those as complex and unique as the Doctor’s. Already his phone strains with the information overload, screen glitching, sound wavering. The Master isn’t about to let the Doctor’s heedless tune wreck his careful labors.

 

Nor will the Master let the Doctor’s song, amplified and intensified by his musically enhanced phone, wreak any more havoc upon him. As the Doctor’s robot, constructed with the tools of their hands and their voice, the Master is uniquely sensitive to their song. Whenever the Doctor sings, no matter what, their voice stirs all the atoms within him. He feels as if he is full of iron filings arranging themselves toward their true north. But he does not trust this particular song to do such a thing, for it already makes a disaster of his carefully ordered perceptions. Pushing the Doctor out and away with all of his psychic force, the Master says, both aloud and in thought, _“Stop!”_

 

There is silence. There is stillness. Realizing that he has clasped his hands behind his head and bent over, chest against thighs, the Master sits up and eyes his phone. Not doing anything unusual, it appears to be back to normal.

 

While he could communicate mentally with the Doctor, the Master does not want to touch their thoughts in such a tumultuous state. He opts for the [relative] safety of text:

 

The Master shuts off his phone. He feels his eyes unfocus, and the tubes, bottles, and brushes at his worktable before him go slightly blurry. Though constructed with the capability of lifting at least three people the Doctor’s size without trouble, he feels sluggish, as if water drags on him with each movement. He takes a moment to recognize the sensation, one that he thought he had left behind upon robotification, yet one that has most lately appeared in the aftermath of the psychic vampire: exhaustion.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Imp, the cat that the Master belongs to, hurries in to report that Alison needs his attention. The Master discovers that Alison is scared of her phone, so, while comforting her, he tries to figure out why.

He has no time [nor capacity] to rest, though, as Imp the winged cat interrupts him. Though he created her from pieces of dead cats and bats that he then electrically reanimated, Imp -- short for _Imperatrix_ \-- does not regard him as her owner. She spends much of her time ignoring him and frolicking with the other TARDIS felines, though they are flightless. She only appears in moments of dire crisis so that she might berate him into doing something useful. The most recent emergency occurred almost two weeks ago when _Cat in a Tree_ [her name for his Doctor] failed to provide her sufficient entertainment with the laser pointer. The Master was thus compelled to flicker the light for Imp until, after thirty minutes, she landed in his lap and required chin scritches for another thirty.

 

Imp calls the Master  _ Useless Cat. Bright Cat _ is his Domina, while the  _ fish box _ refers to the smart phones that he made for her, the Doctor, and himself. He once spent an afternoon teaching Imp to play a phone game in which one caught various aquatic wildlife by swiping on the screen, so now smart phones are  _ fish boxes _ to her. But what has so panicked his Domina that she has flung away the phone with which she was initially pleased? “In her room?” he says to Imp, rising swiftly. “Come!”

 

The Master finds his Domina compacted into a ball, hunched against the headboard of her bed. Her position recalls his own when he was young and the emotional permeability became too much for him. Folded in half, with knees up to chest and torso bent against thighs, she bows her head, her interlaced fingers pressing tightly into the back of her neck. Her phone lies in the bedroom doorway where she has hurled it. He picks it up, switches it off, and sets both hers and his on her desk by the door.

 

He knocks, though the door is open. “[Don’t play with the door to her den,]” Imp admonishes him. “[Just snuggle her.]”

 

“‘M fine!” his Domina says, somewhat muffled by the fact that her head is tucked to her knees. “Not crying!”

 

Even with all that she has undergone since boarding the ship and becoming his Domina, she has not cried. She believes tears an indignity, an ignominy, a capitulation. After all, this is the person who lives her life by the repressive fortitude encompassed in William Henley’s  _ Invictus: _

 

_ In the fell clutch of circumstance, _

_ I have not winced nor cried aloud. _

_ Under the bludgeonings of chance _

_ My head is bloody, but unbowed. _

 

As much as he approves of the last two lines of the poem  _ [I am the master of my fate; / I am the captain of my soul],  _ the Master finds his Domina’s adherence to the gravamen of the work entirely unacceptable. First of all, it is a mediocre attempt at versification with risibly singsong scansion. Second of all, it propounds an unreasonable dissociation from one’s emotions, as if they are the opposition to be overcome. 

 

Nevertheless, the Master knows the truth of emotions: they are a source of power. One does not suppress them; rather, one strategically deploys them in service of one’s aims. His Domina already knows how to transmute her rage into a formidable force for good, but she has yet to learn the same for her fear and her grief. When he teaches her that skill, he will be even prouder that she is his, because she will be indomitable.

 

“May I enter?” he asks.

 

“[Why aren’t you going in?]” Imp says. “[Do I have to purr on her myself? But I told you -- she needs  _ your _ purrs.]”

 

“Magister!” his Domina cries, unfolding, pricking her head up, turning toward him. “Oh Imp…” she says with a little sigh as the cat buzzes to her side, lands, then leans hard into her, burbling.

 

The Master’s Domina would, by all accounts, seem impudent and intractable. She does not obey him unless it pleases her to do so. Furthermore, she has never addressed the Master by his proper name. Instead, she calls him  _ Magister.  _ Despite his own knowledge otherwise, the word has no connotations or denotations of  _ master _ for his Domina because...well, quite simply, because she says it doesn’t. To her, the word means  _ teacher, _ and so it does. Now he answers to one of his aliases from the 1970s, a false name that somehow transforms into truth upon his Domina’s utterance.

 

Despite lacking both the proper form of address and the acquiescence, his Domina is his just as surely as is the Doctor. When she hears him speak, when she says his name, as she now does, she smiles; she stretches her limbs like rays of light. Sometimes she even starts bouncing a little bit, as she does now, not as exuberantly as the Doctor, but enough so that her curly hair dances to its ends. She is his because she consents to be his, and she does so with joy. She neither yields nor abases herself, but opens, ascends, and comes truly into her own.

 

“Dearest Domina,” says the Master, “Imp has given me intelligence that your phone has upset you. Do tell me what the trouble is.”

 

“I don’t know… I can’t…” She flicks a fearful glance toward the lintel where she last saw her phone. “Where did it go?” Her voice rises; she casts her eyes about, suddenly agitated. “I thought I threw it -- “

 

“I retrieved it, disempowered it, and set it on your desk.” The Master indicates.

 

“Oh, thank  _ God.” _ With a sigh, his Domina falls heavily back amongst the pillows against her headboard. She pulls and massages the loose skin above the bridge of her nose. 

 

“You speak as if you fear the device sentient and capable of autonomous movement,” the Master says. “But let me assure you that I added no such capacity to any of our phones!”

 

“[Nobody cares about the fish box,]” Imp interjects. “[Bright Cat killed it. Now pet her.]”

 

“But then -- ? How -- ?” His Domina springs up from the pillows, her eyes switching back and forth. She then becomes very still, staring at nothing in particular. “Oh fuck…” she whispers, her voice so quiet that it’s nearly as scratchy as Imp’s. She shakes again, suddenly closing up, hunching over, and falling back down into the coil of misery from which she so recently rose.

 

The Master rests his hand on her shoulder. “Do I have your permission to hold you?”

 

“Yes…Your heart,” says his Domina. “Please -- can you hold me right up against your heart?”

 

The Master possesses no cardiac muscles whatsoever, and, if he were biological, he would have more than just one. Gallifreyans typically have two hearts, and so did he. Now, though, there are but two noisemakers in his chest that mimic the double pulses he used to have when he was alive. 

 

And so, while his Domina is mistaken on several levels about his anatomy, the error strikes him into shock. Now he realizes why she trusts him so deeply. She believes him neither evil nor alien nor robotic. To her, he is a person, though mechanical, but not an alien person with two hearts. Instead, the Master’s Domina thinks of him as a fellow single-hearted human being. To her mind, the Master and his Domina are equals, and she asks to be close to his heart because hers feels safe there.

 

“Always, my dear,” answers the Master. He stretches his legs out straight on the mattress, takes her into his arms, and sets her in his lap. She sits perpendicular to his chest and leans in, her ear right against his sternum. She likes to hear his noisemakers as much as she likes to hear his voice, and she sighs again. Her whole body moves with the sigh, and her contented exhalation is as if she has begun to eat well after a period of hunger. 

 

As much as the Doctor considers humans one of the universe’s greatest marvels, the Master himself used to find them one of the universe’s most marvelously credulous populations. Though he studied them closely and learned much of their nature and culture, he gained little respect for them [although he did have to admit that their TV shows, particularly of the sci-fi variety, had a certain naive charm]. He perceived them as raw materials requiring a significant investment of manipulation before they could be exploited for his uses.

 

“Hold me fast, please,” says his Domina, beginning to tremble again. “Tightly, tightly!”

 

The Master would have found such an imputation of humanity a grave insult at any other point in his lives. Once he assumed ownership of the Doctor, though, his perspective on humans altered. He played for the Doctor’s companions a variety of roles, becoming what they most wanted or needed. He relished the chance to be the authority whose very strictness incited rebellion, the teller of horrific tales almost beyond imagination, the instigator of criminal mischief, the Warlock, the Reaper, the Trickster, the Prince of Lies. And then he had power over them, for they willingly let him into their heart; but they too found power of their own, for they had someone against whom to strive. Despite all their vulnerabilities, they possessed a sheer stubborn fortitude that he began to admire. The brightest ones he thought of as his students, and he prided himself in teaching them well.

 

He quit his theatrical manipulations after several years, though. As much as the majority of passengers rose to his challenges, a distinct minority turned his performances intolerable. He had developed by then at least a minor appreciation for the human species, but he abhorred those who saw him as either a housekeeping appliance or a demon lover. The ones that he wished would heed him when they did not, along with the ones that he wished would not heed him when he did, killed his enjoyment of the game. He went back to being himself to discourage all other attentions but those of his Doctor.

 

In response to his Domina’s command, the Master pulls her against himself, holding his arms between her and the universe. He presses her tightly enough to his chest that she can move but little. She can only inhale and exhale so far, and every motion of her breathing core pushes against him. He holds her so much that even her shudders are curtailed. At first he assumed that she would not wish such constriction, but he has since learned that this is in fact one of her deepest and most desperate wishes. If he holds her like this, then she feels protected. She feels confident enough to set aside the many burdens that she shoulders day to day. This is not restriction for her, but freedom. He wonders if one day she might feel free enough to do what he cannot and weep.

 

The Master’s Domina has done something that no one else in the universe has. Given the choice between the Doctor and the Master, his Domina chose him, not as her superior, but as her peer. He thought that he had no equals but the Doctor, but that was before he had encountered his Domina. Yet the power between the Master and his Domina differs even from the power between him and his Doctor, and it is curious, novel, and intriguing enough for him to investigate further.

 

The longer that he holds her, the slower her breathing and the rate of her single heart become. Eventually he loosens his arms, stretching them above his head. “Hey, come back…” She looks up to see why her protection has disappeared.

 

“I have gone nowhere.” He folds his left arm around her, then overlaps his right hand upon his left, but without constriction this time.

 

“Fuck it. I… I need to lie down,” murmurs his Domina. He quits the bed, and she removes some pillows that are propped up against the headboard on their short ends, serving as back cushions. Punching the divots out of one or two, she drops them flat on her mattress. She pulls her silk sleeping cap down around her ears, compressing her hair, then plops supine and drags a blanket over her.

 

When the Doctor weaponized the Master and turned him against the psychic vampire that they encountered a month or so ago, it had his Domina in its clutches, suspended above the cave floor. Upon its defeat, it dropped her. She hit her head and sustained a concussion. The immediate pain thereof has long since dissipated, but she still has difficulty concentrating, especially on her beloved dolls. She also easily becomes exhausted, especially after feeling strong emotions. And she hates it.

 

The Master, certain that his Domina has a traumatic brain injury, wishes that he could enter her mind, explore the sources of her symptoms, and alleviate them. He has the capacity to do so, of course. Few in the universe, especially humans, can resist his psychic powers. He, however, would never do so without his Domina’s consent, for that would be a breach of the ethically binding companion contract upon which she insisted in the beginning. It would also rupture the trust and the power between them. So he watches her suffer, unable to help.

 

“Before you sleep, though,” the Master says, “will you please explain what about your phone gave you such terror?”

 

“Someone… Some _ thing _ was trying to mind-fuck me through it.” She shakes her head, her cap rustling against the pillow. “One minute I was just texting like normal, but then I started hallucinating. It was like all my wires were crossed; I felt things and saw things and heard things like in two or three different ways; it was all foreign and...and...not mine and just...too...much!” 

 

The Master knows all too well whereof his Domina speaks. Besides his prodigious psychic gifts, he has always had… Well, most Gallifreyans term it  _ empathic ability, _ but that phrase implies a knowledge of what those emotions might feel like for others -- in other words, a valuable asset worthy of cultivation. He, however, used to feel everyone else’s emotions so strongly that he hardly knew his own: not empathic ability, but  _ emotional permeability.  _ He felt as if there was a hole in his skull, leading directly into his brain, a conduit for infection, an orifice inviting violation. People assaulted his mind merely by existing; he could only maintain his integrity by forcibly suppressing his vulnerability. 

 

“My dear,” he says, “I know that you were scared -- justifiably so, given your recent past. I am deeply sorry that you were frightened. Please know, though, that there was no malicious intent behind your experiences. The Doctor -- “ He sighs. “The old fool’s excitement with the possibilities of emojis hit such a pitch that they began singing. Just as what you call their  _ repair song _ alters my hardware and software, so their song of curiosity and engagement altered their phone, as well as yours and mine. Their phone changed so that it both received the Doctor’s unique sensory impressions, while also broadcasting them to you and me.” 

 

“Ohhhh…” Blinking a few times slowly, his Domina then nods, understanding. “So I was feeling what it was like to be the Doctor through my phone?”

 

“Yes, that would be correct. In so many words, the Doctor was sharing some portion of their consciousness with you, albeit unintentionally.”

 

“If they had told me that’s what they were doing, maybe it would have been okay. But it was all of a sudden, and...too much!” She squeezes her eyes shut. “Please -- can you tell them not to do that again?”

 

“Yes, my Domina.” The Master puts his hand to the side of her face, stroking her. She unwrinkles her brow at his touch. “As soon as I recognized what was going on, I stopped the Doctor, saying that their actions interfered with our perceptions. They ceased instantly and went into quite a...throe of self-recrimination. Once they have calmed down, I know that they will seek you out, apologize, and swear never to do such a thing again, which I am confident that they will not. Just be aware, however, that the apology may, of course, appear in the form of a song, a soliloquy, or a cryptic poem.”

 

“Yeah, well, that’s the Doctor.” She gives a small smile. “Okay. Good. I’m glad. I really need to learn how to put up mental barriers against that kind of shit, though.” His Domina’s eyes slide almost all the way close, but then her lids fly up as she thinks of something. “You know about mental control and boundaries and self-possession! You could teach me. --Couldn’t you?” she adds.

 

As much as he would do anything for his Domina and as much as he wishes her to be even worthier than she already is of his partnership, her inquiry gives the Master pause. The burden of care that his Doctor places on him already demands much of his time and energy, as does that which he provides already for his Domina. He assumes these labors willingly for the most part, indeed, happily, when the novel transactions of power between him and his Domina are involved. 

 

Yet, though he is the Master, he is not omnipotent. He is one person charged with the safety, wholeness, and happiness of two, one of whom has demanded even more of him. Do they recognize how much they take from him? Will they ever thank him? Will they ever stop? 

 

“Yes, dearest Domina, of course. I am ever yours to command,” he says. “Now I pray you -- let me leave, for I must see to my Doctor.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor freaks out when the Master reprimands them for altering his smart phone with their song. Going to calm them down, the Master finds them listening to music of a less trippy, but still weird, sort. Singing of the best kind ensues.

Leaving his Domina and heading for his Doctor, the Master takes a quick look at his texts. As he suspected, the Doctor continued their self-blaming cycle after he signed off. They sent an escalating repetition of the same message for the first half-hour that he spent with his Domina:

 

The Master sighs. He can never tell if, in such periods, the Doctor truly believes that they have laid waste to him as their speech [or emojis] suggest. Or does the Doctor use these figures of speech to depict the violence of their feeling? The Master is certain of only one thing: the Doctor _felt like_ they had destroyed their inevitable spouse. He certainly hopes that they no longer feel this way, as those frantic presentiments of doom bring out the worst in both of them: the Doctor’s inarticulate flailing and the Master’s condescending impatience.

 

He approaches the Doctor’s bedroom door. It’s a simple, whitewashed piece of wooden planks, curved at the top. The long narrow hinges reach nearly two thirds of the way across. The top one, echoing the shape of the door, bends like the blade of a scythe.

 

There’s some sort of drone going on inside, so the Master raps smartly, venturing a mental call as well: _Doctor!_ No response at all, not even to the rather pointed psychic poke. They must be truly absorbed in something. Please let it be other than despair…

 

The Master opens the door. While he himself prefers skulls, _chiaroscuro_ , and dramatic swirls of [black] fabric, the Doctor’s is a sharper, more severe mode, made of wrought iron, cold stone, and the juxtaposition between black and white. Their bedroom is small, maybe four meters by four, but it seems larger because of the five-meter ceilings. Pure white walls, black trim, and a white bed with twisted iron posts in the form of leafless deciduous trees -- all these details give the impression of a winter field cut from paper silhouettes. The floor is of white marble, flecked with grey and black; crumpled white clothes about the perimeter resemble snowbanks, imparting to the room its only softness. In this precise and simplified space, the Doctor finds some temporary respite from the unceasing synaesthetic fireworks of being themselves.

 

At this moment, though, the Master sees no respite. He often encounters the Doctor consuming vast quantities of celery when agitated, as they consider it the gustatory equivalent of white noise and therefore especially tranquilizing. However, their current use of the vegetable deviates from the norm. The Doctor, eyes closed, arms sweeping through the air, mouth open, grin flashing, conducts an invisible orchestra, one stalk of celery in either hand. At regular intervals, they take bites of their batons, chewing and swallowing with brisk efficiency. They replenish their supply with new ones from a heap of stalks on top of their bed, so recently harvested from their jungle that clots of soil crumble onto the white counterpane. Scores of white celery ends litter the floor; the Doctor has been attempting to pacify themselves for quite some time without success.

 

They have a song on endless loop, as customary no matter what their emotions; they feel that manifold repetition is the only way to truly know any piece of music. But this is not the usual music by which they untangle their cares. It is rock or one of the harder permutations thereof. The strings sustain a buzzing keen, with an occasional waver as if to indicate momentary vertigo. The bass pumps in the background with the murmur of hearts unable to still. The tambourine falls upon slow beat after slow beat, ringing sharply. The vocalist does not sing, but speaks in cyclical, fatalistic fragments and pleas. In other words, the Doctor is listening to pain.

 

Telling the Doctor’s TARDIS to quit playing the music, which she does, the Master says, “Doctor! Are you quite all right?”

 

The Doctor, two sticks of celery on the rise, turns around. Apparently they never made it to pajamas last night -- too many new emojis to play with, no doubt. They remain dressed in yesterday’s clothes: green dress shirt half unbuttoned, dark grey tweed vest with a watch chain lolling out of the pocket [but no watch], matching trousers turned into gardening wear by the addition of padded canvas patches about the knees. They look untannably pale pink, bruised with shadows, as usual, but there’s a spark in their eyes, and their nostrils are open in excitement. “Hi! Master! Yes! I’m sorry! Did you call me?”

 

The Master blinks a few times. The Doctor doesn’t appear entranced or hectic in their ebullience, just their usual lively self. He dares a mere glance into their mind. It’s reasonably tidy, with far fewer than usual fireworks. _The music calms you…?_ he thinks to the Doctor, somewhere between a statement and a question.

 

The Doctor polishes off one of their celery batons, then spins around just for the sheer pleasure of it. _Oh yes! You know I usually don’t go for modern, much less U.S., but Velvet Underground has some amazing stuff. This whole album -- it sounds like pain; it looks like pain; it tastes like pain…_ They sigh. _It’s beautiful._

 

_It all sounds like that?_

 

 _Well, no, that’s just one kind of pain: your agonized exhaustion of being pushed past your limits. I mean, there’s also your subtle mounting terror as you realize that your own life has passed you by -- that’s_ Sunday Morning. _And there’s your pain of being forced to want what you don’t want to want -- that’s_ Heroin. _And there’s --_

 

Holding up his hand, the Master steps forward, shaking his head. “Be still! That’s one thing I’ve never understood about you. Suffering is, of course, a part of existence, but I’ve never known anyone to court it quite in the way that you do.”

 

 _“For each ecstatic instant / We must an anguish pay / In keen and quivering ratio / To the ecstasy.”_ The Doctor, quoting Dickinson, shrugs. “Besides,” they add, pointing a celery end at him for punctuation, “I don’t court pain. I _appreciate_ it.” They pronounce the word as if it tastes particularly good.

 

“As do I. I appreciate its power and its ability to master people, and for that reason I am ever on my guard against it. That is one enemy from whom I have suffered too much to befriend.” The Master crosses his arms.

 

“And there’s the difference,” says the Doctor quietly. “For me, pain is a former enemy from whom I have suffered too much _not_ to befriend.”

 

“Right then.” The Master nods. “So you get to know the melodic excruciation of Velvet Underground in order to distract yourself from the pain of having blown up your favorite appliance through sheer cluelessness?”

 

The Doctor sighs, looking down, as they chew through their last celery stick. “I know I didn’t really blow you up. I just… I never want to make you sad. I never want to make you angry. I don’t -- “ Finishing their sentence with a gesture more eloquent than words, they grab the Master’s hands and pull him against themselves, as tightly as the Master holds his Domina.

 

The Doctor, the Master thinks, doesn’t want to upset him because they believe that they will thus drive him away. And they don’t want him to leave, either for the short span of time that he requires to cool his angry feelings or for the [inevitable, impending] period for which he will be gone once he figures out how to release himself from this craft. They keep him here because they want someone to whom they can hold fast.

 

The Master wonders what happens if he himself loses his hold, his grip, his power. Does he slip? Does he sink? He stands still without returning the pressure of the Doctor’s hands or letting himself lie against them.

 

The Doctor notices that the Master does not hold them. Drawing back, they look him up and down with a quick switch of the head. _“Venus in Furs!”_ they exclaim as if surprised.

 

Well, perhaps the Doctor has restored themselves to tranquility enough to consider such things, but the Master hasn’t even been thinking along those lines. He wrests his hands sharply from the Doctor’s. “No.”

 

The Doctor’s eyebrows fly up. “What? Obviously!” they cry, contradicting him.

 

“No.” The Master glares at him, saying each word distinctly: “I do not consent.”

 

“Wha -- ? Oh! You thought that was a proposition? Silly Master!”

 

The Master’s not ready to relinquish that glare. “And how else should I take an allusion to the most well-known title by the author from whose name derives the term _masochism?”_

 

“It’s a book?”

 

“Classic. _Venus in Furs_ by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch: the rather tedious and repetitive story of one Severin’s attempts to cure himself of his desires for humiliation by encouraging one Wanda to act toward him as a demeaning dominatrix. What did you think it was?”

 

“Punk rock. Classic.”

 

“Oh, the song you were listening to! Why are you bringing it up anyway?”

 

“Because...that’s what you look like!” The Doctor gestures, spinning their hands outward from their chest, as if conjuring words forth. “You look like the song.”

 

The Master sighs so hard that the sound thrums in the back of his throat. “I’m not even equipped to have headaches, and you’re giving me a headache. Since I have not encountered this particular piece of melodic torture before, would you kindly deign to tell me exactly why you draw a comparison between me and it?”

 

The Doctor screws up their face. For them, the song says everything; it’s self-evident. Whenever they try such an explication for the Master, he knows that the words he receives are like translations of translations of translations. “The flashes of light and then the darkness -- striking and striking without relief -- forsaken, incurable -- waiting, wanting, wincing, never receiving. Oh, just look!” they cry with a hopeless flap of their hands.

 

He looks inside their mind and sees himself, all in black, lost in a room of white static. The Doctor envisions him seated in a position similar to his default disempowered one -- hands clasped in lap, head bowed -- but more abject. They see him hunched about his own core, head not bowed, but hanging, as if unstrung. They see him brittle and still, as if his immobility provides his only defense against the static invading his skull. They see him exhausted.

 

 _“I am tired; I am weary / I could sleep for a thousand years,”_ quotes the Doctor. _“A thousand dreams that would awake me / Different colors made of tears.”_

 

“At last -- an explanation!” The Master lifts his chin.

 

“I can sing you,” the Doctor says softly. “I want to sing you. I know you’re proud, but I also know you’re that song, and I don’t want you to be tired and hurt. I want to sing you good; I want to sing you whole; I want to sing you happy. Please let me take care of you, Master.”

 

The Master settles his head back into its usual position, the equivalent of a nod. At their bedside, the Doctor shakes a few celery leaves and some loose jungle dirt off their counterpane, then struggles to return it to smoothness. Wordlessly the Master helps them. The two of them neaten the covers, pulling out wrinkles and lumps.

 

With a more comfortable surface beneath him, the Master places himself at the foot of the bed. He leans against a twisted metal tree trunks that forms one of the posts. It’s good and cold, strong and unshakable. Of course, he doesn’t need to breathe, but he still needs to sigh, and so he does. He closes his eyes.

 

His Doctor presses one hand to either side of his face, turning him up toward them as a flower toward its light. And they sing. This is the moment when dawn dissolves into day or twilight sinks into night. This is the breath-held instant before the gale lets loose its rain. The song has no words, but still he hears what it tells him: _Be still. Hold fast. Wait._

 

An expectant, rising hum permeates him as he matches their frequency. This is the first page being turned in a book, the curtain rising upon a performer, the first stitches in raw fabric. _Anticipate. Loosen. Begin -- now!_

 

He is ringing with the sound now; every molecule of his plastic and metal and wooden self resounds with it, and he feels himself changing. This is no startling and foreign transmutation, but a series of subtle, yet profound, adjustments. This is the moment when the spell is memorized and finally understood, when the difficult trick goes off perfectly, when the final form of the garment is seen in the mock-up. He feels a shock, to be sure, but only a welcome one, because now he understands who he truly is and what he should truly be. _Open. See. Fly. Feel!_

 

The Doctor never sings _to_ the Master. There is no preposition in their action; they sing _him,_ directly. As much as they constructed him of tangible materials, so they built him of their breath and their voice. So he finds himself literally tuning into them when they sing, orienting to their sun, aligning toward their north.

 

As he is sung, so he becomes. He cannot control this change, but he does not resent it, for there is no invasion, no violation at all. He feels only an exact suitability and foundational certainty, but, most of all, a power as he has never felt before: the power of being right.

 

The Doctor sings him strong; the Doctor sings him sure; the Doctor sings him sharp and keen, guarded and grounded, imperative and impenetrable. The Doctor sings him himself. The Doctor sings him the Master.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "He looks inside their mind and sees himself, all in black, lost in a room of white static. The Doctor envisions him seated in a position similar to his default disempowered one -- hands clasped in lap, head bowed -- but more abject. They see him hunched about his own core, head not bowed, but hanging, as if unstrung. They see him brittle and still, as if his immobility provides his only defense against the static invading his skull. They see him exhausted."
> 
>  

**Author's Note:**

> Lyrics to _Venus in Furs_ by Velvet Underground may be found [here.](https://genius.com/1163197) Do a Youtube search for the same if you haven't heard it. It really does sound like beautiful, beautiful pain. :p


End file.
